Monday, August 11, 2008

Buy enough Fruit By The Foot to reach Pluto

For the price of the Iraq War, we could've bought enough Fruit By The Foot to reach Pluto.

Pluto's orbit averages 39.48 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. The distance between the Earth and the Sun is 93 million miles. So the distance between the Earth and Pluto's orbit when Pluto is at its average distance from the Sun, and in the same direction from the Sun as the Earth, is 3.6 billion miles.

A case of Fruit By The Foot contains a total of 72 snacks, each of which extends to 3 feet when unrolled. Spanning the distance from Earth to Pluto would require 87 billion cases of Fruit By The Foot. Since each case of Fruit By The Foot can be purchased for $30, the total cost for reaching Pluto is $2.6 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.